Today we began the session by working on bowing. I saw a video of Lindsey Partridge (https://youtu.be/N8K4MUsBdRk) teaching her horse to lay down from the bow and I was inspired to slowly teach Kai to lie down.

Kai is beginning to put weight on the knee that is touching the ground and is staying down long enough to eat some treats. He can physically get into the position very easily but he needs to learn to feel more confident to do it when I ask him.

Then we reviewed the barrel jumping. I asked him to jump the barrel to the left and then to the right and then stop halfway over the barrel. I am very happy that Kai is no longer impulsive over jumps and can alternate between jumping all the way and jumping halfway and even stopping just before.

I then introduced something new. I want Kai to jump a single barrel lying down and to do it willingly with slack in the line. So far I have always put the barrel on the wall so that I could eliminate one of the "wrong" answers when teaching him to stop halfway over it. I moved the barrel off the wall and directed my energy at the barrel. Kai trotted off and went around the barrel. I kept resending him until he jumped it and then we went to relax a little while.

I wanted him to understand that jumping the barrel right away was a lot less work than trying to avoid it.I then sent him towards the barrel again to see if he understood. Kai still attempted to avoid the barrel but this time he jumped it sooner. I gave him another break and I asked him again. Kai kept on trying to avoid the barrel and I calmly persisted. Kai got a little emotional so I toned it down a touch but I kept persisting. He then jumped it and I gave him a cookie and another break.

I then asked him to jump again and he walked up to it, thought about it, and jumped over. He clanked his hind legs on the barrel and he wasn't very graceful but he sweetly jumped, so I decided it was an awesome time to quit. I made a big fuss over his accomplishment because he likes it a lot when I do it. I have learned from previous sessions that he picks up on things much faster with lots of verbal praise along with a cookie and a rub.It will be really fun to see what he understood from this session when I play with him again.